


A Single Soul

by noeon (noe)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:32:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noe/pseuds/noeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Professor Draco Malfoy attempts to survive the inaugural Hogwarts Visiting Weekend with a shred of dignity intact, and Head Auror Harry Potter thwarts him at every turn, supported by a Cast of Thousands (or at least Hundreds).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Single Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cerberusia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/gifts).



> **Warnings:** Infidelity, Minor Post-War Trauma  
>  **Content/Enticements:** Hogwarts redux. Next Gen kids. Fixation, foul temper, second-rate spirits, excessive social interaction. Quidditch. Special warning for John Donne.  
>  **Author's Notes:** Dear cereberusia, I hope this little study of Draco pleases you and that I have accurately tailored it to your likes. I very much enjoyed reading your request and perusing your fic catalog - I was surprised at how many interests we share. Many, many thanks to the gracious mods of HD Erised for their hard work. And a million kisses to f. for the beta.

ἐρωτηθεὶς τί ἐστι φίλος, ἔφη, μία ψυχὴ δύο σώμασιν ἐνοικοῦσα.

When asked, "What is a friend?" he answered, "A single soul inhabiting two bodies."  
Diogenes Laertius on Aristotle (5.20)

 

Hogwarts Visiting Weekend, October 2023

Why Minerva had to come back from a month-long Headmistress exchange with the Salem School of Witchcraft passionately inspired to educational reform at Hogwarts I cannot say, but in the three months since she's returned, we've seen the installation of new WHIZ tapestries in every classroom, a series of paedagogical consultants coming to observe and workshop our every move, and now this: the inaugural Hogwarts Visiting Weekend (for Magical _and_ Muggle Families).

There is not enough Girding Potion--or gin--in the world, and it's only Friday evening. 

We've just weathered an Open Rehearsal of the Helga Hufflepuff Memorial Play, "Sisterhood is Magic," a freely imagined and somewhat bathetic modernistic staging of the lives of the three witches of Macbeth. The parents and guardians are all atwitter about the achievements of their budding thespians at the post-performance gathering. I can feel the bile rising in my throat, and I've only had two drinks, three if the surreptitious nip at tea counts. 

"Yes, yes," I murmur as I make my way through the throng, half-empty glass tightly in hand. "Your Daffodil was marvellous. So inspired. And I thought your Leo did beautifully as well."

Merlin's left tit, what I wouldn't give to turn an Avada Kedavra on myself at the moment.

With a pleasant smile plastered to my face, I hover at the perimeter of the crowd of parents, not far enough away to indicate hiding but not close enough to the centre to be engaged. It's not that I dislike my students, despite the fact that they're horrid little beasts; in fact, I was impressed that they gave the belaboured script any meaning at all—it was quite difficultly done and well fought to a child. My bespectacled progeny held his own as Crofter #2, complete with a total of three speaking lines, and I've yet to hear an objectionable word about a Malfoy on the playbill, although I am always prepared for second-hand scorn. All these years after the war, and it still comes my way on occasion. 

I catch sight of a cloud of unmistakable brown hair: Hermione Weasley-Granger is chatting with Minerva. A small crowd of hangers-on and fellow parents surrounds them. Rose Weasley-Granger played Melpomene, the second of the original Wyrd Sisters. I scan the knot of people and see no one else I know, although a few faces offer flickers of familiarity.

Large gatherings of people are intensely difficult for me to bear. Perhaps my dis-ease is due to the mobs at the post-War trials or the horrors of the War itself, but I always expect a misaimed Crucio. Or worse. My Mind Healer assured me it was posttraumatic stress and that it would wane, but it's never really gone away. The social stigma of wearing the Mark has not helped, nor the doors that shut at the mention of the name of Malfoy, such as the doors of higher learning across England and America and the doors of the Ministry and its echelons. 

Hogwarts has been an unexpected haven for me, and I am reluctant to see it invaded, even in the name of increased parental engagement in the learning process or whatever rot the consultants have cooked up this week. I take another sip of my drink.

"There you are, darling." 

I don't even need to turn to know who it is from the silken roughness of her voice.

"Hullo, Pans. Lovely evening, what?"

"Scorpius was rather good, wasn't he? You must be proud." She leans over and looks at my glass with a pointed expression. "Gin, darling? Really. Don't you want something more seasonal?"

I shake my head. "Despite the school's apparently felicitous location, the whiskey's not worth drinking. I suspect they buy it from Spain. And the sherry from Poland."

Pans smiles, blood red lips curving archly. I lean in to brush a belated kiss across her well-powdered cheek. "It's good to see you. Will Theo be joining us?"

The smile disappears almost immediately. Her razor sharp bob brushes her cheek as she looks down. "He was required in New York." Her voice is icy cool.

Probably this means he has another mistress, but I'm not bold enough to ask, nor do I wish to expose this private pain of Pans's any more than it has already been laid bare. "I see. Are you staying in Scotland?"

She waves a portkey at me, a token with a portrait of old Salazar himself. "I turn into a pumpkin at 9:30. Actually, I think I'm supposed to be in the Hall soon."

I realise she means the temporary arrival and departure area for parents set up in the back corner of the Great Hall. "Shall I escort you down then?"

"I'm sure they need you here. And I'll be back for the Student-Parent Breakfast and conferences tomorrow morning. Idgie is appalled that I'm actually coming." 

The urge to roll my eyes overtakes me. My sympathies are fully with Iphigenia Parkinson-Nott, although I have to take meetings and not merely attend them. The little brat doesn't know how lucky she is. "We may not see each other until luncheon. I've a full morning schedule."

She plants a kiss on my cheek. "We can reunite for Quidditch, although it's a bit of a bore without Slytherin."

The Ravenclaw-Gryffindor match tomorrow should prove to be a spirited affair, especially with both teams showing strong early promise. Head Auror Potter and Ginevra Potter-Weasley's younger son, Albus, is now Seeker for Ravenclaw. His cousin, Rose Granger-Weasley, will chase for Gryffindor.

"At least we know which team to cheer against." Pansy eyes me. "Have you seen him yet?"

"Who?" I've been pretending to survey the crowd, although I've no illusion that I'm fooling Pansy with my feigned lassitude.

She arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "Quite. I'll see you in the morning, then."

With a quick wave, she disappears into the thinning crowd of parents, and I am left with my paranoid musings and swiftly warming gin. 

 

* * *

Harry Potter has no right to look as bloody fit as he does. Although he's been subject to the same passage of time that we all have been and—to the best of my knowledge—has neither been consuming unusual quantities of unicorn blood nor sitting for uncanny portraits, somehow the years have not settled as heavily on the Saviour of the Wizarding World as they have on the rest of us poor fools.

This morning, I am watching him out of the corner of my eye as he takes a crescent roll from the platter on the Gryffindor table. His well-cut dark hair is faintly dusted with strands of grey at temples and crown, there are certainly crow's feet at his eyes, and, yet, he is as lively and boyish as no forty-three-year-old man has any right to be, particularly one as important as the Head Auror. His face is otherwise smooth, and the weak November sunlight is nothing to the sparkle in his green eyes. I hardly need squint to see the boy who was the bane of my existence brought back to life. The Boy Who Lived To Annoy.

He's kept his Seeker's litheness, and the intervening years have only graced him with pleasantly broad shoulders and strongly muscled forearms. I look away and curse the inefficacy of hangover charms when one is not really hungover. The horror of teaching Charms is the rare moment where charms cannot help.

Potter's younger son seems similarly disaffected. Albus is hunched over his porridge, leaning away from his father and barely responding to his attempts to engage him in conversation. Albus is usually quiet, but today he looks downright sullen. It is a match day, and a lot of pressure rests on his shoulders, but I'm not convinced Quidditch is the root of his suffering. Curious.

Lily Potter, by contrast, beams at her father when he talks to her. They are sitting at her table among her House, so perhaps she is more at ease than her brother, but she lights up in her father's presence. They chat animatedly, gesturing toward something or someone behind the table. Hugo Weasley-Granger comes up with his mother, and a space is made at table for the new arrivals.

I look over to the Ravenclaw table where Scorpius sits. He has a book open—History of Magic, if I'm any judge—and reads while his friends and their parents converse. I gave him the option of sitting with me this morning, but he didn't want to change our usual routine. He's fully used to living at Hogwarts as a Professor's son, has been since I took up the position when he was ten. Ordinarily, Albus would be sitting beside him, and as I watch, they trade glances across the tables. They've been fast friends since they were eleven, each new to Ravenclaw but with a well-known family name. I like to think they've normalised Hogwarts, shaped it to their own, new generation and left the trappings of the past behind. Sometimes I envy them their freedom to do so.

Minerva stands up at the familiar gilt owl podium to address us, and the animated hubbub of the Hall falls silent.

"Parents, pupils, Masters, and staff, it is my great honor to welcome you to the inaugural Visiting Weekend at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We have a wonderful day ahead of us and I am so pleased that you are all here. I should first like to call your attention to Botanical Exhibition in the Greenhouses, listed at the bottom of your programme…"

Several hundred parchments rustle as schedules are consulted.

As Minerva continues her welcome, I draw my robes more tightly around me and let my eyes roam, checking the hushed arrivals of parents at the back of the hall and the filling benches at the table. The Potions Master, Magnus Gyth-Gilbraith—vulgarly known as Pompous—nods to me from his position at the end opposite the Slytherin table. He was made Head of House with no objections from the Board of Governors, whereas my own candidacy was scarcely mentioned before being strongly opposed. This has led to the curious situation of a Head of House who defers to the Charms Master, and a houseful of Slytherins who consult me, rather than their Head, whenever there's real trouble beyond a missed curfew. I'm performing much of the work and receiving none of the compensation, but it behooves me not to complain. I suppose I'm just as glad to keep my suite of rooms near Ravenclaw Tower; at least I remain closer to Scorpius than the Slytherin dungeon would be. Gyth-Gilbraith's not a bad sort, but he's more likely to have his nose in a book than in the complicated web of Hogwarts gossip that helps balance the scales of power. And that is where I come in.

Among the sea of Slytherins, I see Pans sitting next to a fuming Idgie. I can only imagine what mother-daughter pleasantries transpired over bangers and mash. Pansy looks a bit fragile but resolved, her own bright spirit shining through the gloom of her current situation. I do wish she'd just divorce the bastard, but it's not my place to say. To her right, Blaise sits with little Zara, beautiful and urbane as ever. His eyes remain fixed on Minerva, but the corner of his mouth quirks as I glance in his direction.

My eyes are inevitably drawn back to the Gryffindor table and the visage of my former nemesis. Potter is sitting quite near to my end of the table, eyes lifted attentively to Minerva, mouth open a little and lower lip a bit too pink and plump for my liking. He's been worrying it with his teeth, it appears, and I do not wish to think too long or hard about that little detail. I see two points of pink, like a high flush, on his cheekbones.

Just as I am preparing to look away, he catches my gaze. My heart pounds in my throat. Potter's looking right at me, eyes green even at this distance. I swallow, unable to look away, and I see his Adam's apple bob in sympathy. We're caught together, our eyes upon one double string, staring at each other. For a breathless moment, my world shrinks to him and his stupid, stupid face. Spots stray across my vision; I am faint with horror.

At last he looks away. I take a deep breath, struggling not to laugh wildly. Surely this is madness. I think everyone must have seen what transpired, but when I glance carefully about me, no one seems to have noticed.

"...This afternoon, we will all gather at the Quidditch pitch for what will be, I'm sure, a thrilling match between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor…"

I dare not look in his direction again.

* * *

By the noon luncheon, I'm utterly shattered. I stare at my reflection in the staff WC mirror: my face is unnaturally drained of color and twin dark circles are etched beneath my eyes. I resist the urge to confirm the wrinkles I know lurk in my ageing visage: 43 is not as young as I'd like it to be, although I've kept decently well due to the Black side of the family.

I'd no idea how exhausting ten-minute conferences with eager parents could be. There are only so many ways to say, "Your child is as bright as his/her fellow pupils" or "Really, your child will never excel at Charms, barring an Imperius by someone with talent." The repetitive niceness of it all makes me long for someone brave enough to tell me to my face what they think of Malfoys, especially bent ones. Despite the amicability of my split with Astoria when Scorpius was nine, the _Prophet_ had been more than happy to out me to the wizarding world at large in a ridiculous attempt to cast me as the villain in our domestic drama. Astoria had laughed it all off, setting one particularly vicious insinuation by Rita Skeeter aflame with a well-placed Incendio. 

"Really, darling," she'd drawled as the newspaper had smoked and burned over our breakfast table, "our friends shouldn't be the least bit surprised by any of this, and the rest of wizarding society can sod off for all I care. Mushminded imbeciles, the lot of them, with Skeeter their half-witted queen bitch."

There are times, even now, when I dreadfully miss Astoria's caustic candour.

I contemplate hiding in my rooms for the rest of the afternoon, but Minerva would notice. Also, I haven't seen Pans since breakfast. After a quick drying charm and a spot of hair-thickening glamour (just a small one), I push my way into the hallway and am nearly bowled over by a high-speed blur of cloaks and the occasional jacket racing to the pitch.

It must be later than I thought. I cast a quick Tempus, and yes, I've less than ten minutes to make it out to the match. I merge into the rowdy mass streaming out of the Castle, taking care to drift to the side so as not to get pulled under. When the chill air hits my skin, the excitement builds in my veins. I've always loved match days, and the secret pleasure of my position at Hogwarts is the frequency with which I get to return to the Quidditch pitch of my childhood. 

The sky above is frosty grey and crisp with the possibility of snow. I draw my cloak more tightly about my shoulders, grateful for both the warming charms and the extra cashmere that the Danish cloak makers wove into the inky charcoal fabric. I spent a winter sabbatical exchange in Copenhagen last January, and my wardrobe for Scotland has since suffered several well-tailored, modern additions.

Scanning the crowds from the top of the stairs, I spot Pans sitting in a gorgeous vivid green cloak in the Ravenclaw section. She looks moderately out of place, but elegantly so. My heart contracts, and for a moment I wish, as I have so often before, that we could have made our lives together as partners, that the complexity of my sexual tastes and their thoroughgoing disappointment to my family could have been dealt to someone else. I breathe, and there is Scorpius, tousled gilt hair winter bright next to his godmother's dark brown bob. And I am so grateful that I forget to be melancholic.

Scorpius spots me first, and Pans waves brightly after he nods in my direction. The heads of students and pupils alike swivel, and I nod and make pleasant greeting noises to several groups as I press through the packed rows of seats. 

When I sit down, Pans loops her arm through mine and leans in. "It's positively frigid for October."

My response is lost in the beginning of the announcer's welcome to the crowd. The dull clamour swells to a roar as the players dart out and into the air, first Ravenclaw blue and bronze, flashing under the brittle grey sky, then the flaming red and gold of Gryffindor.

I've several students on both sides and, to be honest, Scorpius's initially surprising Sorting has given me a certain freedom to cross House lines. I always support Slytherin, and never Gryffindor, but I've cheered Ravenclaw and even Hufflepuff on for a number of years, depending on circumstance and opponent.

The balls are released, the whistle is blown, and the match begins. Ravenclaw's Chasers establish an early lead, and Gryffindor become even more aggressive as the scoring continues.

"Al looks good," Scorpius says, watching his friend hovering over the pitch. The air is cold enough that his breath forms clouds as he speaks. 

"Indeed."

Pans has an opera glass, but she's looking down at the stands. I follow her gaze and spot Blaise over in the Slytherin section. He nods as he sees us. Pans turns quickly, as though suddenly spotting a Nargle in the Hufflepuff section. I smile and wave.

"That wasn't very subtle," I murmur into her hair.

"Pot, kettle," Pans says, and I realise that, without my being conscious of it, my gaze has strayed over to Gryffindor and the current Wizarding Elite in its stands. Potter's cheeks are red in the raw air and, fool that he is, his collar is open and his muffler askew. What's worse, the modest dishevelment of his cloak and well-tailored oxblood Auror robes looks superb on him. He is saying something to Granger-Weasley, and I can almost read his lips.

I drag my eyes away. "Touché."

Rose Granger-Weasley scores, and the crowd of her relations erupts in cheering. Gryffindor pennants wave and, from the sound of it, I think someone even has a vuvuzela, or else there is a vibrating sheep getting sick behind the stands.

Scorpius frowns. "Those aren't allowed anymore since the match with Durmstrang." 

"Really?" Pans raises an eyebrow.

I nod. "They're surprisingly distracting. And the Squid doesn't like them."

In Scorpius's first year, a full shipment of magical vuvuzelas had made its way from a disreputable vendor to Hogwarts, and the constant bleat-buzzing of the horns had caused migration disruption in several bird populations near Hogwarts and an epic fit of temper from the Giant Squid. The culmination had been during a friendly with the visiting Durmstrang team in which several players had become disoriented after an amplification charm and flown out of the pitch only to crash to ground, necessitating rescue from the Lake and Forbidden Forest.

Now, play is momentarily suspended. While the Chasers turn lazy circles, McGonagle stands disapprovingly in her tartans, eye as eagle sharp as ever. The offender is located, and Neville confiscates the horn.

Once play resumes, Pansy laughs richly. "Oh, I have missed Hogwarts."

Ravenclaw is leading 110-80. The increasingly frustrated Gryffindor Beaters aim for a Ravenclaw Chaser and nearly hit one of their own instead. Play is growing rougher and the parents are screaming alongside their children.

Then a flash of gold appears on the far side, and the entire crowd holds its breath as Al and Bryn Woods dart down, down in free fall, impossibly fast. There is a rush of breath and a shadow across the sun. Potter is on his feet with the rest of Gryffindor, straining to see the plunging Seekers beneath them.

Everyone gasps as they nearly hit the boards on the far side, and then it is a slim, dark-haired figure in blue leathers, Albus Potter, rising into the centre of the pitch with golden wings beating like a caught heart between his reddened fingers.

Ravenclaw is on its feet cheering, and Pans and I stand shouting acclaim with our neighbors, while Scorpius rushes forward with the others of his House to congratulate their champions. From the midst of the crowd, I look over, and Potter is looking straight at me. He pushes up his glasses, a faint smile quirking the corner of his mouth. I swallow, dumbstruck for a moment until Pans elbows me.

"Draco, don't. You know he's married."

I cough and look down. "Whatever do you mean?"

Her flinty gaze is the spitting image of her mother's. I'm chastened despite myself. "Don't let him see you looking. You know how seriously Gryffindors take everything. You're only setting yourself up for failure."

When I glance back, Potter's eyes are still fixed on me. I can't read his expression. I brush my glove over Pans's shoulder. "Let's get back to the Castle for hot chocolate," I say with a lightheartedness I do not feel.

* * *

The Hog's Head is musty and dark when I push the heavy studded wood door open and step inside. It's half eleven, and the bar, although renovated at least once in the past twenty years, is still grimy and close. I avoid the press of regulars and keep the hood of my cloak up, ducking down the hall to the second set of stairs in the back. After careful strides up the worn carpeting and a careful turn to avoid the overhanging plaster, I emerge on the back landing. 

As far as I know, no one has seen me, but one can never be too sure. Most of the parents were gone after the match or at least after hot chocolate. Pans stayed for dinner; before she left for London, I promised to visit over Christmas hols while Scorpius is in the country with Astoria.

The stillness stifles, and my heart is pounding in my throat. I stop to catch my breath. There is a sharp peal of laughter from the bar, but nothing moves up here.

I cross to a familiar door at the end of the hall. My knuckles barely touch the wood before the door is wrenched open. Harry—because here he is always Harry and never Potter—stands in the frame, white shirt open at the collar, sleeves of a green jumper pushed up to show his wrist bones. I shiver as he pulls me inside. He smoothes a hand over my hood, pulling it down. I swallow, watching him up close, the strength of his jaw, the firm cut of his cheekbones, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes.

My eyes close as his lips find mine, and my shoulders hit the door with a muffled bang. I don't care. My hands are in his annoyingly thick hair, and his mouth devours me, teeth scraping across my lip and making me moan. The flash of pain is followed by a deep, searching kiss, so soft and thorough, I think I'll never breathe again. He lifts me slightly to drop my cloak to the floor, and I take the opportunity of his distraction to force my tongue past his lips, my hand on his shoulders now. We haven't been this desperate in a while.

He lifts me up again, turning me until my knees hit the edge of the bed. I let him go to fall backwards, his arm behind me to slow my plunge as he falls with me. His hands are cold as they find their way inside my shirt, and I couldn't care less. He bites my jaw, I wrap my legs around him and pull him closer, desperate to have all of him now and weak with my own desire.

Harry pulls back then, green eyes dark on my face. "God, Draco. What do you—"

"Your mouth," I say breathlessly, eyes tracing the delicious curve of his lower lip. 

He grins, reaching to take off his glasses and set them on the nightstand. I grip the shabby headboard as he inches down my body, his lips on my stomach, my hipbone, his cheek pressing against my thigh.

I splay my legs and let him open my trousers, working them around my hips and not bothering to take them off before his mouth is on me, first over the cotton of my smalls and then over nothing but warm skin. 

Some gloating part of me thrills in the knowledge that I'm being blown by the Head Auror in a shoddy room in Scotland. I'm not proud of my willingness to tempt destruction, but the reality of this is so glorious when we're together, I forget what it's like when we're not.

Harry chokes a little, pulling back, and I moan, tangling my hand in his curls. When my hips thrust, his mouth is over me again, his hand wrapped around me, and I can think nothing but bliss, bliss, bliss.

My orgasm overtakes me embarrassingly soon, and he swallows as I blush. He comes back up to kiss me, and I taste myself on his lips. "You're going to wreck me," I say in a rare moment of honesty.

"That's certainly my intent." His true smile is far more devious than most people get to see.

"Now what do you want?" I ask, lips on the tender shell of his ear, and he shivers deliciously against me.

"Turn over," he commands, and I oblige, shimmying my hips and rubbing against him, my trousers around my ankles and my dignity shot to hell. He ruts against me for a moment, a delightful friction of cloth and skin and want. I love this. I always have since that first night we spent together in a Muggle hotel, seven years since. My marriage ended because of Harry. That was the part of the story the _Prophet_ had never discovered. Not even Astoria had known the name of my lover; it had never mattered to her, and she had never asked. 

Harry's fingertips trace small circles over the smooth skin of my arse. "Do you have the lube?" Of course I do. I always bring it; it would never do for the Head Auror to be found with a phial of oil in his pocket. Our secret must remain ours. I reach for my wand and summon it from the pool of my cloak by the door.

It warms in his hands, but I say another warming spell for the room, then my clothes are gone and my belly is scratching against the coverlet, my cheek turned on the pillow.

We'd both been lonely, Harry and I, caught in marriages that had settled into sexless friendships, both of us unwilling to admit that what we truly wanted was a swollen cock rutting against us, just the way Harry is doing now. This, what we have now...we never planned to be here, furtively shagging in a shabby room above the Hog's Head, relying on the discretion of Aberforth Dumbledore to keep our secret. 

He always does.

We've known each other long enough that Harry knows I enjoy less prep rather than more before being fucked. I don't know if it's a true love of pain, really, or just friction. He touches me softly, kissing my arse cheek and breathing over my skin until I moan, but his fingers barely stretch me. He slicks himself and then lines up, the weight of his body pressing against mine. My hair is across my face, and my teeth are in the soft flesh of my hand, so I don't cry out as he pushes into me.

I imagine what this would have been like if we'd found each other the first time at Hogwarts, if he'd screwed me like this in our Houses, or in the castle, or in this same threadbare room. Sometimes I think we fuck like we're making up for all that time. 

"You're so tight," he breathes out. His hips push, and I feel a stab of pain with an afterburn of pleasure.

I smile against the pillow, willing my body to open and loving the stretch of it. "You've been gone for a long time."

His hips pull back, then push again, and I feel the slick become enough, feel the deep heavy slide of his cock within me as his hips slide flush against my arse. He braces himself, his arms quivering. "God, how you feel." 

Although the reality of him in my arse is almost more intense than I can bear, I'm drunk on the tone of wonder in his voice. I shift my hips, and then it's so good I can barely speak. "Harry. Harry, for fuck's sake, fuck me."

The headboard slams against the wall, even though my cushioning and silencing spells are in effect, I can't imagine the whole inn can't feel the vibration of his body slamming into mine. I bounce foolishly on the mattress, arm overhead to keep my head from hitting the headboard, other hand splayed behind me on Harry's hip, coaxing him into me. 

He pulls me back against him, and I brace my elbows under me. Our hips are fused, and his teeth are on the cords of my neck, raising a bruise. 

He pulls out of me then, and his hand push my hips until I turn onto my back. His hair is wild, a cloud of dark curls, and his face looks like pain, only sweeter. His cheeks are red and there is a flush on his neck.

I thank the yoga I picked up last year as I easily hook an ankle over his shoulder, pressing my heel into his muscled back. His eyes flash, and then there's a bit more lube and he's bending me double, his cock hard and red between my legs, then pressing into me. I claw at the coverlet, and he's pistoning, almost there by the clench of his jaw and the stiffness around his mouth. 

"Who have you fucked since you saw me?" Harry bites the words out, not stopping the motion of his hips.

I struggle to look at his face. "No—no one."

He stops for a second. "Really?"

I think of London, of Edinburgh, a quick pull and another, but really, there's been no one like him. Even though I've found flesh, it's never like him. "Yes, really."

His nails dig into my bicep, and I moan, clenching my arse just the way he likes. My thighs shake. I think he's going to slip with another thrust, and then he's shouting, honestly, shouting, my name, epithets, something coarse, guttural, and broken as he shudders uncontrollably against my body, and I feel the warm, slick slide of his come inside me.

He rolls off of me and lies against the pillow, panting from the force of his release. My arse is slick and cooling. I hate this part, even though it was a wonderful ride here. And I'm still so aroused I can't settle. Harry doesn't seem to be moving, so I take myself in hand, digging heels into the bed and stretching my legs. I feel the phantom fullness inside me, and my nerves are raw. 

He bats my hand away and presses two fingers in me as he strips me ruthlessly with his other hand. When his teeth sink into my shoulder cruelly, I am undone, spasming and jerking against him, painting my stomach with a weak, wet smear and clenching my arse around his thick, stubby fingers.

A bit of a warmed flannel and a cleaning spell or two later, we're tucked under the blankets. I close my eyes, tired from the weekend and finally relieved of the pretense of polite behaviour. 

His hand strokes my hair. "I've missed you."

"You know we can't do this, Harry." I nod without opening my eyes. I say this every time. "We were supposed to stop two years ago." 

He won't leave Ginevra. Not until the children are out of Hogwarts. We've had this discussion more than once, and I don't have it in me this weekend to argue with him again. It's foolish of him, I think, this ridiculously Gryffindor insistence on protecting his children's childhoods. A divorce will hurt no matter if they're fifteen or twenty. Besides, much as I might dismay over Lily Potter's Charms marks, they're not fools, the Potter brats, particularly Albus. I've warned Harry repeatedly: Albus's sullen disposition towards his father is more than the usual teenage churlishness. I'm more than certain that the boy has noted the distance between his parents at hols, that he can read through the lines of his mother's increasingly frequent international trips to cover Quidditch matches for the _Prophet_ during the school term—her very absence this weekend is due to a Turkey-Bulgaria match in Sofia. Both Potter parents throw themselves into work to avoid each other; I can't help but be thankful that Astoria and I ended things before we reached that point. 

I open my eyes, staring at the faded paper on the wall across from me. There's a dull ache in the back of my throat, a foolish wish that this could be different, that Harry and I could walk through Diagon Alley together with our children, hand in hand. Sometimes I despair of sex with Harry for the insipid maudlinity it inspires within me.

Harry sighs, then resumes the gentle slide of his hand across my hair. "We aren't doing this. And it's brilliant."

The innocent enthusiasm in his voice makes me roll my eyes, but it's pure Potter. This is what draws me to this impossible man, time after time, the contradiction of his ruthlessness wrapped in a sincerity that makes me wince. That, and he's a brilliant shag. Who appears to care for me as well. We've never said it, never voiced those words, but for seven years we've been coming together in this intricate, secretive dance, this magnetic push and pull of opposites. It's more than sex for both of us, we know. Harry Potter loves me. I can feel it in his touch, his kiss, the way he looks at me in moments like this. It doesn't need to be said. Not yet. Perhaps one day we'll be free to do so, perhaps one day I'll look back at him and tell him what I feel. But tonight, I turn, rolling to my side and shifting until his arm comes around me, anchoring me against the warmth of his body. 

"I shouldn't stay." I touch the face of the one man I've loved for all these years. His stubble is rough; his skin warm. I let my fingers drag over the softness of his mouth, tracing the curve of his lower lip. "Minerva might be nervous enough to do a bed check in the castle."

We both know it's a pretense. "Stay," Harry says, and he kisses my fingertips.

The warmth and the comfort catch me, and the last whisper of fight goes out of me as Harry pulls me closer, his mouth finding mine.

And I stay. For him. I always will.

 

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,  
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;  
Thy firmness makes my circle just,  
And makes me end where I begun. 

Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

**Author's Note:**

> You can leave a comment here or [at the post on Livejournal](http://hd-erised.livejournal.com/9033.html).


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